


The Spider

by ProgramasaurusRex



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-21
Updated: 2016-07-21
Packaged: 2018-07-25 19:21:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7544830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProgramasaurusRex/pseuds/ProgramasaurusRex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dinesh rolled over to face him. "You're not going to make fun of me for being afraid of spiders?" he asked.<br/>"No," said Gilfoyle.<br/>Dinesh started to smile.<br/>"I'm going to make fun of you for being afraid of me."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Spider

It had been a long drive from Palo Alto to another pointless tech conference, far enough away this time that Dinesh and Gilfoyle were going to have to stay overnight.They had bickered comfortably for the first hour, criticizing one another's choice of radio station, then settled into silence, then bitched a great deal about Richard and how stubborn he was for refusing to redesign the platform and how wasteful it was that they'd gone through all of this effort and heartbreak and now their last half a million dollars was being squandered sending them, the powerless peons of Pied Piper, on these stupid, stupid road trips from hell.

RIGBY.

Actually, Dinesh and Gilfoyle were getting along okay today. Over lunch at a greasy spoon, Dinesh found himself relaxing a little, laughing as Gilfoyle made fun of the other patrons.

"How about that one?" said Dinesh, indicating a harried single mother a few booths down.

"Mom jeans by day. Closet heroin addict by night," said Gilfoyle.

"No way," said Dinesh. "That lady's a meth head if I ever saw one."

As they set up their booth in the convention hall, they chatted a bit to the other participants. Some fellow computer lovers were sympathetic to the Pied Piper cause, awed by the raw power behind the platform. A couple oblivious souls actually asked if they were hiring. A tiny, enthusiastic man in a knitted cap assured them he could fix their UI and have them drowning in daily active users in a matter of weeks.

"Don't waste your time," said his well-mustached friend. "I've read about Pied Piper. Real talent sinkhole, if you ask me. Their platform's never going to catch on."

"Ooooh, I'm a derivative cooking app with 214 downloads! Let's give advice to the guys who destroyed TechCrunch!" said Dinesh.

"That was last year," said their adversary. "Turns out you guys know fuck all about making a real world product people actually want."

"Dinesh made a video chat that's going to blow Skype out of the water," said Gilfoyle suddenly. "Pied Piper's not packing it in any time soon."

"Bullshit!" he replied.

Gilfoyle sent knitted hat guy and mustache man an invite to the chat app and then immediately walked away. Dinesh followed on his heels, astonished. 

In answer to a question that hadn't been asked, Gilfoyle told Dinesh, "I meant it."

Something swelled inside Dinesh. Undernourished self esteem? Road trip Stockholm syndrome? Why did it feel so good to have Gilfoyle's approval? Dinesh knew his video chat was terrific. Dozens of people had started using it and told him so. But somehow, his success hadn't been real until the instant Gilfoyle said so.

Now that he stopped to consider it, he wasn't exactly sure why he spent so much time with Gilfoyle. Some of it was necessary work time, but even when they weren't working, something magnetized him to Gilfoyle's side. Dinesh received very little kindness from Gilfoyle, it was true. Logically he should have befriended Jared, and then Dinesh could have been the cool friend. But, for mysterious reasons, Gilfoyle's companionship felt comforting. 

He put his finger on it at last. Gilfoyle understood him. With no need for effort on Gilfoyle's part, with no need for communication on Dinesh's part, Gilfoyle just read him, as easily as you'd read a street sign, just magically showed up behind him every time he was upset and forced him to open up about it. And understanding kicked the shit out of kindness. Understanding was like rubbing alcohol: it stung like a motherfucker and made you want to swear and hit things, but afterwards you felt sort of purified and awesome. Just standing next to Gilfoyle was a tangible reminder that someone had seen what horrors lay inside him and hadn't been scared away. And on the rare occasion when Gilfoyle did offer him a shred of kindness, he felt very special indeed.

Sometime after dark, Dinesh and Gilfoyle stopped at a roadside stand and ordered burritos and nachos and a metric fuckton of hot sauce. For reasons Dinesh couldn't fathom, Gilfoyle stopped the car in the desert, in the shade of a brick red butte, got out a picnic blanket, and lay down on his back to eat his meal. 

"What are we doing here?" Dinesh asked.

Gilfoyle pointed up. 

Dinesh got out of the car and lay next to Gilfoyle.

"You know astronomy?" Dinesh asked.

"Sure," said Gilfoyle.

"Kind of a weird hobby," said Dinesh.

Gilfoyle said, "People used to navigate by the stars. And one day, after Western civilization collapses, after all the server farms and cables and satellites get nuked into ticker tape by the Chinese terrorist cells hiding in plain sight, and all the works and days of hands go up in flames, we'll navigate by the stars again."

The idea seemed to bring him some sort of inner peace.

Dinesh lay still, watching his companion's face out of the corner of his eye. He had several great points to make about the stars and the Chinese and the end of the world. But also, he didn't want to talk. He knew if they talked they would argue; they would remember they were supposed to be themselves. He decided he would rather forget for a moment. 

After a little time had passed, Gilfoyle got up and began stretching. No, Dinesh realized with a jolt of shock, he was doing yoga. Perhaps, drunk on starlight, he had forgotten Dinesh was there. Or perhaps he had remembered but decided that it was okay to let Dinesh glimpse something a bit personal. He supposed he should seize the opportunity to make a joke, to ruin this for Gilfoyle as Gilfoyle had ruined so many experiences for him. But as Dinesh watched him, he felt an unexpected stream of happiness coursing through his body, and he couldn't seem to bring himself to interrupt.

"Can you show me how?" Dinesh asked.

Gilfoyle smiled, but it wasn't his usual smile of victory or superiority. "This is the lotus position," he said, and held it until Dinesh copied him.

The two moved in unison for a few minutes. The stream of happiness spread everywhere: from his cheeks to his ankles to his folded hands. How strange to be taught the praying mantis by a Satanist. They worked in near silence, Gilfoyle occasionally correcting Dinesh's posture with his hands.

Finally, Gilfoyle stopped and seemed to remember where he was. He gathered up the remains of their takeout picnic, got back into the van, and drove back to the hotel.

Dinesh had been groaning about how humid it was all day, so by the time they reached town, he was ready for a wash. In the filthy lobby of the cheap motel, he announced, "I call dibs on the first shower!"

Gilfoyle shrugged and allowed Dinesh to lead the way up to their horribly substandard hotel room. Once inside, Dinesh darted into the bathroom before Gilfoyle could stop him. But a few seconds later, he practically sprinted out again, fully clothed, as sweaty as ever.

"Actually, that shower's pretty gross," he said in a fake casual voice.

"We're going to be here for two days," said Gilfoyle. "You're going to have to shower eventually." He entered the bathroom himself, examined the shower, and left.

"Dinesh," he said, "Are you afraid of spiders?"

"Afraid?" said Dinesh. "I wouldn't say I'm afraid, I mean they're disgusting, and some are poisonous, but you know, I'm a red blooded man; I've killed a spider or two in my time."

Gilfoyle looked at him. "I'm like a black belt in body language. Do we really have to do this?"

"Do what?" said Dinesh.

Gilfoyle sighed. "You're afraid of spiders and you're lying about it."

Dinesh said nothing for a moment, then finally burst out, "Fine!"

Gilfoyle paused, considering his roommate.

Dinesh started tapping his fingers on the bedside table. 

Gilfoyle continued staring at Dinesh and saying nothing.

Finally, Dinesh sighed. "Go ahead, give me shit about it."

"No," said Gilfoyle, "I don't think I will just now."

"Oh, so you're saving it up for later?" asked Dinesh.

"I could be," said Gilfoyle.

"Fine then, you do that," said Dinesh, turning to rummage in his suitcase for his toothbrush.

Gilfoyle lay back on the bed. Singular. The guys were so broke it had come to bed-sharing.

"So we're going to trade off on the bed, right?" said Dinesh. "One of us gets it tonight and one of us gets it tomorrow night?"

"Sure," said Gilfoyle, "if you're so insecure in your masculinity you can't manage to share a bed with another guy."

Dinesh sighed and went to go wash his face and brush his teeth. The spider was still lurking in the shower. After undressing, Dinesh attempted to bathe himself with a washcloth and the soap next to the sink. At least in the morning, Gilfoyle would have to kill it in order to take a shower himself, unless he went the extra mile and made a pet out of it just to annoy Dinesh. 

He wondered what Gilfoyle was going to wear to bed. He had packed his pajamas, but now that he thought about it, he might get made fun of for sleeping in pajamas. But he might get made fun of for sleeping in his boxers, too. Somehow he was certain that whatever he wore to bed would be the wrong thing. He finally compromised on boxers and a T-shirt.

Gilfoyle was curled up on one side of the bed, reading some steampunk novel, also in boxers and a T-shirt. He looked peaceful and relaxed somehow, about to fall asleep but determined to make it to the end of the chapter. Dinesh slid in beside him.

"You know that spiders are a completely normal thing to fear, right?" said Gilfoyle softly. "Some of them actually are deadly."

Dinesh rolled over to face him. "You're not going to make fun of me for being afraid of spiders?" he asked.

"No," said Gilfoyle. 

Dinesh started to smile.

"I'm going to make fun of you for being afraid of me."

Dinesh aborted the smile halfway through.

"You have an annoying habit of trying to hide things from me," Gilfoyle continued. 

Dinesh lay back, turning his eyes to the ceiling. "I'm not a big fan of getting shit on."

"No one is. You let it control you though. Your entire life is determined by the opinions of others," said Gilfoyle.

Dinesh tensed up. "If you're going to lecture me about the infinite freedoms of the left hand path again, don't. You and your damn cult."

"You don't have to be a Satanist to assert yourself," said Gilfoyle. "Everyone has weak points. The world isn't entitled to an apology for yours."

"What do you care?" Dinesh snarled.

But Gilfoyle lay still, head in hand, watching Dinesh squirm. "You're on my team," Gilfoyle said. "It's in my best interest to toughen you up."

"Oh, so it's strictly business," said Dinesh.

"You sound disappointed."

Dinesh watched the ceiling, his breath short.

"Actually, no," said Gilfoyle. "It isn't strictly business."

And despite himself, despite the dark eyes holding every one of his twitches and expressions hostage, Dinesh gripped onto the sheets.

"Relax," said Gilfoyle.

Involuntarily, Dinesh let go and gingerly turned toward Gilfoyle. "What ... did you mean by that?"

"I would have thought it was obvious from context. What isn't business is personal."

"Meaning?"

Gilfoyle rolled his eyes. "Meaning I like you."

Dinesh sat up. 

"You're surprised?" said Gilfoyle, sitting up too, leaning casually against the bedstead. 

"You're an asshole to me."

Gilfoyle replied, "Yeah. You're friends with an asshole."

"But you're an asshole to me specifically," said Dinesh. "You go out of your way."

"You don't have any brothers, do you?" Gilfoyle asked.

"Well, no," Dinesh agreed, "I'm an only child. What does that have to do with anything?"

Gifoyle tilted his head. "We've played maybe a thousand video games together, eaten breakfast together every morning for the past three years, smoked a few dozen pounds of weed together, gotten coffee together, and dissected every potential love interest you've ever had. I assumed you had put two and two together."

Dinesh's face clouded over. His instincts were telling him he just might be witnessing a peek behind the veil. But his past history with Gilfoyle told him not to trust too easily. "Why do you have to ..."

"To what?" said Gilfoyle, shoulders down, eyes permitting. "Dinesh ..."

Dinesh breathed in. "Why do you have to torture me?"

Gilfoyle looked at his knees. One could almost imagine, at the corners of his lips, remorse. "You think I'm trying to trick you," he said, voice satin, face pure empathy. "You think no one could like you."

Dinesh could not think of one single thing to say that he would allow himself to say.

"Look," Gilfoyle said, softer than melting margarine, softer than an eiderdown on a cirrus cloud. "I know I give you a hard time. That's how I am. But I'm your friend. I thought you knew that."

Dinesh snorted. "You literally bragged to me for a week about not having or wanting friends."

"I was lying," Gilfoyle said. "Unlike you, I'm excellent at it."

"Why?"

Gilfoyle shrugged. "Pride, I guess."

Dinesh simply stared at him for a minute. 

Gilfoyle said, "I play the tough guy, too, Dinesh; I'm human. I don't want to look stupid. I'm as stubborn as you are. That's probably why ... " A flash of feeling lit up his eyes behind his glasses. "Can I be straight with you a minute?"

"Are you ever not?" said Dinesh, surprised, because it was surreal seeing Gilfoyle this flustered.

"A man needs companionship," he finally said, breath hitching, voice beginning to break. "I don't like admitting that, but it's true. Having a close friend is ... a good feeling, a luxury, one I've denied myself for a long time because I didn't want the dependence that came with. But you ... I didn't realize it until it had already happened, and that's unusual, because friendship has never come naturally to me. But it did this time. And ... I want it to keep happening; I want us to get closer. Imagine never having to worry about hiding things anymore. We could just ..."

Dinesh nodded. Yes, he understood; yes, he wanted it, too; but yes, he knew why Gilfoyle was hesitating.

"It's like a drug," said Gilfoyle. "Bonding. Picking out something you've spent years making sure no one found out and just saying it, not letting it hold power over you anymore."

Dinesh drew in his ankles. "Gilfoyle, don't ... don't be fucking with me. Please ... this is over the line ... "

"Scout's honor," Gilfoyle said, and he held up three fingers, and Dinesh wasn't even sure if they had the scouts in Canada, but for some reason he believed him.

"All right," said Dinesh. 

And then he realized. They were engineers. They had no idea how to do this.

"So where do we start?"

"Endorphins," said Gilfoyle.

"What?"

And without another word of explanation, Gilfoyle wrapped Dinesh up in a huge hug.

Dinesh snuggled into Gilfoyle's chest, guided by instinct, nose in his friend's shoulder, right arm draped around the other. For about a minute, he simply enjoyed his position. He felt warm, and protected, and Gilfoyle kind of smelled like a dollar store bin stick of Axe, but he liked it, and he pulled back a little and some kind of invisible dotted line pulled him into Gilfoyle's lips and oh shit, oh shit, Dinesh was kissing him, why did he have to get greedy, why the fuck didn't he quit while he was ahead?

Gilfoyle pushed him back gently to arm's length but didn't let go of his shoulders. He was smirking, which beat the hell out of beating the hell out of Dinesh, but still unsettled him.

"Interesting," Gilfoyle said.

Dinesh panicked. He tried to get up, but Gilfoyle wouldn't let him. There was nowhere to hide his face, so he closed his eyes, his whole body tense as a copper spring, gasping for breath.

"Don't be afraid," Gilfoyle whispered. Dinesh opened his eyes but turned away, so Gilfoyle put an arm around him as they sat parallel on the bed, but despite the reassurance, Dinesh was very much afraid.

Calmly but warmly, Gilfoyle said, "That's the bravest thing I've ever seen you do."

Dinesh blushed. Reality wasn't real anymore.

"Did you mean to do that?" asked Gilfoyle.

"No," said Dinesh, struggling to regain composure.

"But you wanted it? At the time?"

Dinesh still couldn't believe he wasn't being punched right now. "Yeah," he admitted.

"Then you did the right thing."

Dinesh exhaled.

"Want to keep going?" Gilfoyle suggested.

"Do you?" Dinesh said cautiously.

"I don't know," said Gilfoyle, as if deciding what kind of flatware to buy. "I usually enjoy sex. And doing it with someone I'm close to is always interesting."

"Have you ever ..."

"... been with a guy? No," said Gilfoyle. "I'm not against it though. Actually ... why not? Let's make out and whoever gets hard gets a blowjob."

Dinesh couldn't believe it. It had to be a trick. But Gilfoyle was leaning in, touching lips to lips, and this time no one was pulling away, and Dinesh felt rough hands pulling his T-shirt off, and he realized he wanted desperately to be as close to this man as possible in every sense of the word.

Dinesh wasted no time in dragging Gilfoyle's shirt over his head and pulling him in, skin to skin this time, his hands raking through Gilfoyle's hair, an unfamiliar wetness on his mouth. He didn't have much experience with kissing, but he knew Gilfoyle knew that, so he let Gilfoyle lead, and soon enough he ended up on his back, shoulders pinned to the bed, hands tracing their way down Gilfoyle's sides. He felt his Super Mario Brothers boxers sliding off his body and hungrily returned the favor. 

He didn't know why he had expected Gilfoyle's cock to be enormous, but he was pleased to find it was about the same size as his. After all their years of figurative dick measuring contests, it felt appropriate. He was far too afraid to take it in hand before Gilfoyle touched his, though, and Gilfoyle seemed to be in no hurry now that they lay naked together. For a time they simply lay in each other's arms, lazily kissing, feeling necks and backs and buttocks, basking in the rapidly rising heat, waiting for their erections to reach maturity.

Because they were both getting hard, Dinesh noted with relief. Gilfoyle was playing a sort of game now, palming his inner thighs, his hips, his stomach, maddeningly close to but not touching Dinesh's cock. He kept making eye contact and smiling, too, the prick. Dinesh realized with a jolt that this thoroughly pleasurable body writhing in his arms was, after all, still Gilfoyle, and still, to the bitter end, determined to tease him.

"Please," said Dinesh.

"Please what?" Gilfoyle asked.

"Please suck it," said Dinesh.

That was all the encouragement Gilfoyle needed to shimmy down under the sheets and take Dinesh's penis right into his mouth. Or at least the top two thirds of it. He began sucking rather unimaginatively, head bobbing up and down in a tight rhythm.

"Ow!" cried Dinesh. "Teeth!"

"Sorry!" said Gilfoyle. He tried again, this time with his lips leading, and it started to feel good, very good. Dinesh lay back and enjoyed the sensation of wet strokes all over. Soon enough, he was saying, "I think I'm going to cum soon."

But he didn't. This was very different from masturbating; he wasn't in control and instead of peaking, the tingling feeling in his penis simply grew and grew, far past anything he'd ever experienced. Gilfoyle was beginning to slow down, like he was getting tired. Finally, Dinesh came, not very much but some. It felt extremely strange to do so with another person watching. He pulled his dick out of Gilfoyle's mouth and Gilfoyle climbed back up to lay with him.

"That wasn't as easy as I thought it would be," Gilfoyle admitted. "I couldn't fit it all in. Anyway, you're up."

Dinesh crawled down and took Gilfoyle's cock in his mouth slowly, licking the tip first, running his tongue over the head, then the shaft, cupping Gilfoyle's balls in his hand, before finally inching his mouth over the whole thing. He knew it was silly, but he wanted to do better his first time than Gilfoyle had. Slowly, he made his way up and down The Penis, taking care to keep his teeth covered, stopping at half mast to rub his tongue all over. When he got to the part where The Penis was touching the back of his throat, he attempted to bend it diagonally into his cheek, making use of the Pythagorean Theorem.

"Nope," said Gilfoyle, sensing his intent. "It doesn't work that way."

For a few seconds, Dinesh tried deep throating The Penis, but realized almost immediately that it wasn't going to fit. He settled for slowly sucking the top three fourths of Gilfoyle's cock. His mouth started getting tired pretty quickly, but he kept going, Gilfoyle's soft sighs sustaining him. To keep him steady, Dinesh started singing a song in his head. He had gotten through the whole song two or three times when he realized he wasn't making any progress. Was it working? Or was he somehow defective at cock sucking? Finally, he heard a few grunts coming from the owner of The Penis. After what seemed like an eternity, Gilfoyle came into his mouth. He swallowed the load and crawled up for a celebratory spooning.

Hairy, well-muscled man arms wrapped around his neck and waist as he stuck his face right into Gilfoyle's torso. All reticence gone, he savored the intense closeness. Gilfoyle pulled the bedspread over them, carefully tucking it around Dinesh's shoulders. He then began the process of stroking shapes into Dinesh's back.

"You okay?" he asked Dinesh.

"Still in shock," said Dinesh. "You know ... I used to be super afraid that my parents would find out I eat pork and drink alcohol sometimes. And now ..."

Gilfoyle laughed.

"This is going to change things, isn't it?" said Dinesh.

"Only things that were shitty to start with," said Gilfoyle, and held him tighter. "I've got you. Don't worry."

Dinesh wriggled with happiness.

"I could use a shower," Dinesh muttered to Gilfoyle presently. "Feel like killing that spider yet?"

Gilfoyle frowned. "To be honest I don't like them much either."

Dinesh took Gilfoyle's hand in his, leading him still naked into the bathroom. "Together?"

Gilfoyle followed.

A spider died.


End file.
